Richard N. Haass

Expertise

Bio

Dr. Richard Haass is in his thirteenth year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.

In 2013, he served as the chair of the multi-party negotiations in Northern Ireland that provided the foundation for the 2014 Stormont House Agreement. For his efforts to promote peace and conflict resolution, he received the 2013 Tipperary International Peace Award.

From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Dr. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. In recognition of his service, he received the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award.

Dr. Haass has extensive additional government experience. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Dr. Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previously, he served in the Departments of State (1981-85) and Defense (1979-80) and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate.

Dr. Haass also was vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, the Sol M. Linowitz visiting professor of international studies at Hamilton College, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A Rhodes scholar, Dr. Haass holds a BA from Oberlin College and Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University. He has also received numerous honorary degrees.

Dr. Haass is the author or editor of twelve books on American foreign policy and one book on management. His most recent books are Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America's House in Order, and War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.

Dr. Richard Haass was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951 and lives in New York City.

Richard N. Haass contrasts the decisions that shaped the conduct of two wars between the United States and Iraq involving the two presidents Bush and Saddam Hussein, and writes an authoritative, personal account of how U.S. foreign policy is made, what it should seek, and how it should be pursued.

All Publications

Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass writes that John Kerry has only one chance to make a first impression on his first trip abroad as secretary of state, and what is said and not said on this visit will have repercussions for years to come.

"What is clear is that there is no shortage of challenges or opportunities beyond America's borders. What may matter most when it comes to this country's national security, though, is whether it can put its own economic and political house in order," says Richard N. Haass.

"Israel needs a Palestinian partner if it is ever to enjoy peace and be the secure, prosperous, democratic, Jewish state it deserves to be. But such a partner will not just emerge; Israel, as the stronger party, actually needs to help the process along," writes Richard Haass.

Campaign 2012

Presidential candidates should not only be asked how they will deal with foreign policy challenges but also what they would do ensure the United States is positioned to meet them, says Richard N. Haass.

Richard N. Haass says, "Intervention in Syria need not be defined as either armed intervention or intervention with arms. There is much more that the world can and should be doing to bring about the removal of the Assad regime."

Presider:

Session One: Origins of the Cold War

Speakers:

Frank Costigliola, Professor of History, University of Connecticut; Editor, The Kennan Diaries, Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of American History, University of Virginia, Author, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, Philip D. Zelikow, White Burkett Miller Professor of History, University of Virginia

Presider:

Andrew Nagorski, Former President and Director of Public Policy, EastWest Institute

Presider:

What to Do About Iraq

Speakers:

Stephen D. Biddle, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations; Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Project, Harvard Kennedy School

Presider:

What to Do About Russia and Ukraine

Speakers:

Karen E. Donfried, President, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Robert Kahn, Steven A. Tananbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Presider:

What to Do About Syria

Speakers:

Ryan C. Crocker, Dean, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University; Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Charles W. Dunne, Director, Middle East and North Africa Programs, Freedom House; Former Director for Iraq, National Security Council Staff, Paul R. Pillar, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University; Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Central Intelligence Agency

Presider:

What to Do About Guantanamo Bay

Speakers:

Phillip Carter, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy, U.S. Department of Defense, Marc A. Thiessen, Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Former Chief Speechwriter to President George W. Bush, The White House, Matthew C. Waxman, Professor, Columbia Law School; Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Presider:

CFR Fellows' Book Launch Series--By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World

Speakers:

Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Fellow and Director for Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, Council on Foreign Relations

CFR Fellows' Book Launch Series--By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World

Speakers:

Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Fellow and Director for Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, Council on Foreign Relations

What to Do About Tensions in Asia

Speakers:

Jeffrey Bader, John C. Whitehead Senior Fellow in International Diplomacy, Brookings Institution; Former Senior Director for East Asian Affairs, National Security Council, Karl W. Eikenberry, International Security Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation; Former Lieutenant General, U.S. Army; Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Former Director for Asian Affairs, National Security Council

Presider:

What to Do About Egypt

Speakers:

Thomas Carothers, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Daniel C. Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Professor, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University; Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and Israel, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland, College Park; Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Author, The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East

American Leadership and Global Governance in an Age of Nonpolarity

Introductory Speaker:

Speakers:

R. Nicholas Burns, Former Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Ellen Laipson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Henry L. Stimson Center, David F. Gordon, Head of Research, Eurasia Group

Moderator:

Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on International Institutions, Council on Foreign Relations

A Second Look at the Great Depression and New Deal, Session One: The 1920s - Bubble, Growth, or Gold?

Introductory Speaker:

Panelists:

Michael Bordo, Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Monetary and Financial History, Rutgers University, Edward C. Prescott, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences; W. P. Carey Chair of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University

Symposium on the U.S.-Japan Partnership, Session One: Global Transformations and the U.S.-Japan Partnership

Introductory Speaker:

Panelists:

Tanaka Akihiko, Professor of International Politics, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies and Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment, and Director, Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, Council on Foreign Relations, Sheila A. Smith, Senior Fellow for Japan Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Presider:

Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture on Divided Nations: The Dilemmas of International Protection for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

Speakers:

Roberta Cohen, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution; Co-Director, The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement; and Principal Adviser to the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Francis M. Deng, Director of the Center for Displacement Studies; Research Professor of International Law, Politics and Society, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress; and Wilhelm Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prospects for the Peace Process in Northern Ireland

Presider:

Speakers:

Peter Robinson, Deputy Leader and Member of Parliament for East Belfast, Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Nigel Dodds, Party Secretary and Member of Parliament for North Belfast, Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

A decade ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the United States chose to immerse itself in the greater Middle East when it had little reason to dive in. But now that most Americans want little to do with the region, U.S. officials are finding it difficult to turn away.

Presidential candidates should not only be asked how they will deal with foreign policy challenges but also what they would do ensure the United States is positioned to meet them, says Richard N. Haass in this Politico op-ed.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe, Dr. Richard Haass discusses the potential fall of Assad, preparations that should be made ahead of the end of his regime, and, if necessary, the ramifications of intervention in Syria. He also comments on U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and American troops serving there, as well as Chinese politics and outlook for regime change.